Gary Sanford's Strat

[Rich_S]

Joe Jackson's guitar player for those of you who don't know.

Does anybody know anything about this guitar? I found one little description on the web, suggesting it's a combination of 50s and 60s pieces, with a P90 in the bridge position.

There are some great old vids on Youtube, but 1979-vintage videos being what they are, it's hard to get a clear picture of the guitar. It seems to have no pickguard, and all sorts of pickup weirdness going on. I'd love to have the details - his tones were fantastic.

I was also really impressed by how "on" the Joe Jackson band was back then. They were just one step this side of a punk band, but everything was just so anti-sloppy. Jackson's vocals were perfect - great intonation. In particular, this clip from 1980 stands out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfArO24gSNw

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Gary Sanford's Strat

it was all fun and games until Joe played Toronto with The Who... took a bottle to the head at the CNE Stadium...

sounds like this strat was a real mutt!

 

[Mutt Guitar]

Re: Gary Sanford's Strat

His guitar was a 63 strat. He used to change the pickups around so often that he decided to take the scratch plate off and screw the pickups to the wood for easy pickup changes. Also to position them to get the best sound from the "out of phase" positions. He settled on the original fender pickup in the neck position, a beefed up fender pickup (rewound by Kent Armstrong) in the middle and the P90 gave him a nice over driven sound without using an overdrive pedal. The only pedal he used was a mxr compressor.